A dish that’s not to be hurried over: The ultimate spaghetti bolognese

Steaming bowls of spaghetti bolognese are served up in many British kitchens every day. This Italian inspired-dish is comforting and hearty, easy to make ahead and (if you’re cooking for children) a perfect place to sneak in your five-a-day. We’ve taken this dish to heart and made it our own.

Spag bol is especially loved by students, as Simon Hopkinson and Lindsey Bareham remind us in The Prawn Cocktail Years (Michael Joseph): ‘The mince was purchased, onions chopped, tins of tomatoes opened, garlic crushed in a garlic press, and heat applied.’

Although, even here, its Italian roots push their way though: ‘It’s not a boil-up. It’s a pot of stewed meat, a ragù, cooked very, very slowly and thoughtfully seasoned.’

Many Italians view spag bol as an abomination. There is no such dish in Italy; they don’t eat spaghetti with bolognese, period. Ragù alla bolognese, the sauce that started all this, doesn’t have peas bobbing about in it or come scattered with mushrooms. And it is most certainly not made with ketchup.

A quick word on which pasta to use: Italians match their sauce to the shape of the pasta so that you get a well-balanced mouthful. Smooth sauces cling better to long strands of spaghetti noodles; flat pastas, such as tagliatelle and linguine, work well with meat sauces; while chunky sauces go best with short pastas, such as fusilli or penne.

Let’s put the ‘spag’ bit aside and get to the important stuff: How do we make a beautiful ragù alla bolognese, one worth eating all the time and good for freezing in batches for evenings when we are too tired to cook?

There are some chefs who go a little off-piste. Jamie Oliver’s nattily named Oliver’s Twist features sun-dried tomatoes and rosemary, while Nigel Slater’s Really Good Spaghetti Bolognese (Kitchen Diaries, Fourth Estate) is loaded with umami-rich mushrooms.

What do the Italians think of such witchery? In 1982 in Bologna, the home of bolognese, the Accademia Italiana della Cucina stated the ragù mustn’t contain anything more than beef cartella (thin skirt), pancetta, carrot, celery, onion, tomato sauce, whole milk and half a cup of white or red wine (dry and not frizzante).

The choice of meat isn’t too complicated. Forget all that poncing around with low-fat turkey mince, cow – some vouch for veal, most use beef – is non-negotiable. When I try Marcella Hazan’s recipe from The Essentials Of Classic Italian Cooking (Boxtree), she suggests ground beef chuck. Chuck is loaded with connective tissue, therefore has a good balance of meat and fat and makes a mouth-slappingly rich ragù.

How you cook it is important, too. ‘The meat must be sautéed just barely long enough to lose its raw colour,’ said the late Hazan. ‘It must not brown or it will lose its delicacy.’ So no aggressive bubbling, thank you very much.

In her weighty tome Gastronomy Of Italy (Pavilion), Anna Del Conte heats unsalted butter with olive oil and gently cooks diced unsmoked pancetta. For her main meat, she uses equal amounts of minced ground pork and beef. The pancetta imparts a wickedly unctuous element to the finished ragù. Some kind of pork is a must in my final dish.

And I must mention butter. I’d assumed we wouldn’t stray from olive oil territory on this mission but both Hazan and Del Conte include a wink of butter. I can only say it’s a beneficial inclusion.

Elizabeth David’s recipe in Italian Food (Penguin) differs somewhat from the others. Chicken livers and uncooked ham mingle with her beef mince. I give it a try with the livers but use British pork belly instead of the ham. The well-reared belly (from Turner And George, http://www.turnerandgeorge.co.uk) makes my sauce silken and opulent. And, thanks to the livers, the finished dish swaggers with iron-filled earthiness. I’d like to have belly and liver in my finale but is this too indulgent for such a simple dish?

David’s recipe stipulates using just 113g of livers but the ragù is surprisingly livery. It’s almost overwhelming and you need to love the distinctive offaly notes. I do but to tone it down, I decide I’ll use a third of the amount in my dish.

Laura Santtini’s recipe in Easy Tasty Italian (Quadrille) is intriguingly called Nonna Pasqua’s Quick Ragù. It’s essentially beef mince, stock, garlic and a 50g squirt of tomato purée. Carrots and celery have been evicted. Perhaps it’s due to the short cooking time but I find it a bit muted.

When I scrutinise my bowls of ragù at taste-testing time, I decide a soffritto – a mix of aromatic vegetables such as celery, onions and carrots – is a must but garlic is optional. Some swear by adding a dash of milk to bolognese, supposedly to remove the bitterness from the meat. Hazen adds a little to hers and I do detect sweet, creamier notes in her sauce. The milk seems to balance the acidic elements.

One final word: be vigilant about cooking time. Most recipes call for two hours or more. Anything less and the taste will not be intense enough. This is not a dish that can thrown together in half an hour.

Ingredients (Serves 4)

The meat:

200g beef chuck steak, minced

100g minced pork

75g pork belly or pancetta, finely chopped

1 chicken liver, very finely chopped

The rest:

1 large carrot, very finely chopped

1 onion, very finely chopped

1 stick of celery, very finely chopped

75g unsalted butter

100ml full cream milk

3tbsp tomato purée

100ml glass white wine

100ml water or stock

1 pinch freshly grated nutmeg

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Cooked pasta of your choice to serve

Method:

Melt 75g unsalted butter in a large pan over a medium heat. Add the onion and cook gently until translucent. After 3min, add the celery and carrots. Cook for 3min, stirring now and again.

Mix in the pork belly and pork mince and cook for a few minutes. Then mix in the liver, then the beef. Cook gently. It should lose its pinkness and not be raw but do not let it brown.

Pour in the milk and simmer until absorbed. Add white wine and simmer for 1min before mixing through the tomato purée, nutmeg and seasoning with salt and pepper. Pour in the stock.

Turn the heat right down so it is barely simmering. Cook, uncovered, for two hours or more, stirring occasionally. Add another tablespoon of stock or water if it starts to dry out too much.